Servers and network attached storage (NAS) are connected to client devices using Ethernet or some other similar protocol. This standard protocol allows for communication between multiple clients as well as multiple serving devices. Typically, when data is to be stored on one of the serving devices from one of the client devices, the data is passed, using a data bus, from the client processing unit to a network interface controller (NIC) on the client device. From the NIC, the data is passed using Ethernet or some other similar protocol to the server or NAS. Upon arrival at the server or NAS, the transmission must then be reverted back to PCIe or some other data bus before it can be passed on to the appropriate drive by a processing unit on the serving device.
Most servers or NAS include at least one NIC, a computer processing system, and one or more drives or storage volumes to store the information from the client devices. The NIC is responsible for taking in the information from the client devices and, in reverse, supplying the data to the client devices. Connected to the NIC, the computer processing system is configured to control the storing and retrieving of data from the one or more drives, which may include solid state storage elements, hard disk elements, virtual hard drives among other storage solutions.